Most of us know that some books in the New Testament were not written by the person claimed in the book—such as 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. Ehrman calls these books forgeries, which at first sounded a bit harsh to me. I had often repeated the explanation I heard from others that, though these books were not from Paul, they were written by his disciples in the spirit and authority of Paul’s teaching, which was a common practice among ancient students. What’s wrong with that?

Ehrman says there is plenty wrong with that assumption. He surveys how genuine authors in antiquity responded to such books, and they were NOT happy. They flat-out called them forgeries. Then he showed how early Christians were also unhappy with such books and considered them forgeries as well.

I found Ehrman extremely convincing on this point and had to agree that books like 1…